Art and Ethical Criticism

Notes on Contributors vii

Foreword xi
Garry L. Hagberg

Part I: Historical Foundations 1

1 Is Ethical Criticism a Problem? A Historical Perspective 3
Paul Guyer

Part II: Conceptions of Ethical Content 33

2 Narrative and the Ethical Life 35
Noel Carroll

3 A Nation of Madame Bovarys: On the Possibility and Desirability of Moral Improvement through Fiction 63
Joshua Landy

4 Empathy, Expression, and What Artworks Have to Teach 95
Mitchell Green

Part III: Literature and Moral Responsibility 123

5 "Solid Objects," Solid Objections: On Virginia Woolf and Philosophy 125
Paisley Livingston

6 Disgrace: Bernard Williams and J. M. Coetzee 144
Catherine Wilson

7 Facing Death Together: Camus's The Plague 163
Robert C. Solomon

Part IV: Visual Art, Artifacts, and the Ethical Response 185

8 Staying in Touch 187
Carolyn Korsmeyer

9 Susan Sontag, Diane Arbus, and the Ethical Dimensions of Photography 211
David Davies

10 Ethical Judgments in Museums 229
Ivan Gaskell

Part V: Music and Moral Relations 243

11 Cosi's Canon Quartet 245
Stephen Davies

12 Jazz Improvisation and Ethical Interaction: A Sketch of the Connections 259
Garry L. Hagberg

Index 286